Saint-Michael, ignoring him, took a tighter grip on the control stick and nudged it forward into the swirling mass ahead.
America provided no visibility out the cockpit windows except for the commander and pilot, so the others were spared seeing the source of the explosions, rumbles and flashes of light and heat that threatened to tear their ship apart during the final docking with Silver Tower.
The cargo bay temperature had risen to the danger zone when they moved only two hundred yards closer to the crippled station. "Cargo bay overtemp warning," Hampton reported.
Saint-Michael promptly overrode the preprogrammed command — which had been to jettison the fuel tank — and chose "EMERGENCY COOLANT SHUNT" instead, opening a manifold from the scramjet intake coolant system that allowed supercooled hydrogen to flow from America's fuel tanks through to the radiators. It was a risky choice — the tiniest leak in the radiators would have allowed the hydrogen to be ignited by the superheated ionized particles streaming past the spaceplane from the station — but there was no explosion and the temperature moved away from the danger zone.
Saint-Michael's fingers moved over the control buttons on the stick, switching between translate — straight-line — and rotate thrusts. Because it took less time to rotate in one direction than it did to reverse directions, America literally corkscrewed its way toward the docking port. They had been forced to hit smaller pieces of debris to avoid impact with larger ones. Debris breaking off or exploding from the station didn't always "fall" or disappear: it seemed to hang around the station in a dangerous orbit of its own.
After nearly thirty minutes America was hovering a mere ten feet from the docking adapter, held in place by the spaceplane's intricate station-keeping computers. But ten feet was still ten feet too much. "We can't go any further, General," Colonel Hampton said. "We've got the stationkeeping routine running as precise as the system allows."
Horvath spoke up. "I'll go to the docking module and—"
"No. I'll go," Saint-Michael said.
"I'd advise against it, General," Hampton said. "Your dysbarism…
"I've got to do it sooner or later, Jon, and I'm the best qualified to check out the station. I've been prebreathing oxygen for the whole flight so I should be okay. You've got the ship."
Saint-Michael waited until Hampton had adjusted his manual controls and situated himself, then unstrapped and floated back toward the airlock. Ann reached out and stopped him. "If you feel… if you get in any trouble, get back."
He nodded, moved past her. It took him five minutes to get into a spacesuit and backpack. Ann prepared to suit up after he exited the airlock, was watching him through the observation port on the chamber door as he began to depressurize the airlock. Suddenly, just as he moved the AIRLOCK DEPRESS switch from position five to zero, he quickly punched it back to five. "Jason?"
He held up a hand toward her but seemed to be shaking his head trying to clear his vision.
"Switch back to PRESSURIZE, — she called to him.
"I'm all right." Saint-Michael slowly stood erect, shaking his head as if recovering from a fall. "It's gone." He reached for the depressurization control again—
"No," Marty said quickly. "You can't do it, General—"
"I'm all right." He waited a few moments, then switched the depressurization knob to zero. A few minutes later he gave Ann and Marty a thumbs-up and undogged the upper airlock hatch. Ann was repressurizing the airlock as soon as the general had locked the hatch after exiting.
"Bad news," Saint-Michael said over his comm link. "The docking tunnel is unusable whole docking module is about ready to break off the station. Everyone has to EVA."
Saint-Michael scanned the spaceplane. The view of America against the chaos around the station was quite a sight… The gray-black spaceplane seemed to add a sense of power and strength to the damaged station it hovered near. He could see tiny puffs of gas escaping from the maneuvering jets on America's nose and tail as the spaceplane maintained its tenuous position beside the station.
The scene looked normal if he concentrated on just the station and the spaceplane, but when he tried to look at earth the view became chaos again.
With America in near-perfect synchronization with the station, there was no apparent movement between them — but earth appeared to be spinning all around them, making one revolution over Saint-Michael's head every minute. At first it was disorienting and he had to fight off the "leans" — his eyes telling him he was standing still, his head and body spinning and oscillating in reference to earth. It was like being on a crazy roller coaster with one's eyes closed. "Be careful when you step outside — the ride out here is a wild one. I don't see any major damage to America. Ann, I'm going to start unstowing the PAM boosters. I'll attach one, you get the other."
"Roger. I'm a minute from EVA."
Saint-Michael made his way carefully along America's spine toward the open cargo bay, his attention continually drawn to the damage on the station. The most serious was on the keel, especially — the SBR antennas. "The Russians did a job on the SBR control-junction boxes," he said. "It looks like we'll have to splice all of them but I can't be sure at this distance. One or two of the arrays might be intact."
He continued down to the cargo bay and maneuvered beside one of the PAM booster engines, removed restraining pins on the cargo bay attach-points.
"Both PAMs are unpinned."
"Copy, General," Marty Schultz said.
Saint-Michael looked up as America's remote manipulator arm rose out of its launch stowage cradle and the tiny closed-circuit TV camera aimed itself at him. "Ready to eject the aft PAM."
The general maneuvered back a few feet away from the booster. "Go." With a puff of gas the large booster slid out of its attachment sleeve and lifted slowly out of the cargo bay. As it rose up before him Saint-Michael maneuvered himself up and across to a reinforced mounting bracket on the side of the booster, then jetted forward until he could grasp the booster. He pulled himself into the booster and latched the front of his MMU to the bracket. His head was just above the top of the booster. "I've got the first PAM," he said. "Ann, I'm heading along the keel toward the spaceplanes' nose to attach the booster. You take yours toward America's tail to the keel. Mount your PAM perpendicular to America's alignment to the keel; I'll mount mine parallel to America. Maybe we can stop the spinning at the same time we boost the station away."
"Copy."
"General, this is Hampton. We're at seventy-five miles altitude. Cargo bay temperature is back in the danger zone."
"Go to EMER on the radiator cooling system again."
"I did. It came down but it's heading back up again. We've run out of time. I suggest we jettison the fuel cell and pull out."
"Forget it… Ann, where are you?"
He saw her emerge from the upper airlock hatch before she could answer. "On my way." He passed her a few moments later as he headed out past America's steeply angled cockpit windows, over the pointed flat nose around the maneuvering jets, and down and along the open-lattice keel. "We've got to hurry, Marty, we're going to need you and Horvath out here. Now."
"We're both in the airlock suiting up," Marty told him. "Should be out in four minutes."
It took Ann and Saint-Michael ten minutes more to attach the boosters to the keel. Meanwhile Schultz and Horvath had exited the airlock. Marty took the last MMU — America carried only three — and helped Ann attach her booster to the keel. Horvath, without an MMU but using tethers and safety clips, made his way up through the damaged docking tunnel and into Silver Tower's docking module.
"My booster is secured," Saint-Michael reported. "Ann?"
"Just one minute more and—"